French Video 1: The French Consonants and the IPA

This is the first of a 3-part series on French pronunciation. The goal is to get familiar with the sounds of French. You'll then be able to learn them faster, either through your own studies or through my pronunciation trainers. More links below:
Flashcard Designs for Teaching Yourself Pronunciation: blog.fluent-forever.com/gallery/
My Pronunciation Trainers: fluent-forever.com/product/fl...
Anki Language Learning: ankilanguagelearning.com
More Anki Decks, including French Pronunciation: speakada.com
Reddit's Anki Language Learning Community: / ankilanguagelearning
A super detailed discussion of the IPA: • Pronunciation Tutorial...

[@abdullahm..2303]

That's not just nice stuff, That's tremendous work. Thank you so much. I love it. I was looking for a video explaining French IPA. since I started learning French, I just knew I needed to learn IPA to get past the scattered letters of a word that is pronounced so differently from what's written. never needed IPA for English before; but for French, IPA just saved me from going crazy on French.

[@support_gaza]

Hello Muslim Brother! Are you arabic or from Pakistan or any other Stan country?

[@ptkk21]

My dude, the tempo precision and accuracy in your explanations is superb.

[@FluentForeverApp]

Thanks, Marcin! We're glad you enjoyed the video!

[@inv8890]

This is one of the most helpful videos I have ever watched on youtube ! Thanks a ton :D

[@ErickGarcia-lm7nw]

amazing video even after six years I really appreciate it

[@amandarollins5616]

This is so incredibly helpful!!

[@bijugangadhar7834]

This is a marvelous job bro Thank you so much

[@amin001001]

Quality material. Good job.

[@talsgarthewanderer6612]

It's been very helpful, thanks!

[@saisaihuang5895]

Exactly what i am looking for, thank you so much

[@sammosaurusrex]

Funnily enough, as a native English speaker, I’ve never struggled with throaty r’s like in French and German. R’s made with the tip of the tongue, on the other hand, those throw me for a loop.

[@Acer040393]

Really nice stuff!

[@me4000]

This is exactly the video I've been looking for! So many pronunciation videos say, "oh, the consonants are the same as English ^_^ , it's so easy" but I could always hear the difference in French audio. Thanks for finally being the one to point this out and explaining how to make the proper sounds! The mouth-shape diagrams and comparisons (cat's car vs. cat scar, etc) help tremendously. You're the hero we don't deserve :D

[@FluentForeverApp]

Thank you for your kind words. We're glad to hear that our video was helpful. Keep up the great work! 😊

[@gladysma308]

Excellent!

[@leo_misha]

I think you are the best at explaining, merci, y espero sigas haciendo buenos videos, poka !

[@Xomper]

Wrong language, dude

[@Shewit.]

Thanks body,the best video ever that could help me the way I would like

[@AStrangerComplete]

It's helpful but I think it can be much better for beginners if you pronounce the sounds a little more slowly. Haha.

[@veryallen3]

you could go to setting of youtube and adjust the speed

[@kruks]

Not to mention he sells a product (and a subscription now; the old one-time price Anki deck is still available though) that helps with all of this. It doesn't seem intended as a one-stop learning guide, but more of a start of what is the long journey of pronouncing a language with some major differences from English.

[@Lam-ey4lm]

This is so helpful. Thank you!!!

[@FluentForeverApp]

We are glad to hear it, Lam!

[@paulthomas281]

Super well done! I didn't know the y-w/v in 'nuage' was a distinct consonant phoneme. Thanks.

[@FluentForeverApp]

Happy to help!

[@changed1867]

Extremely helpful!!! Thanks you

[@FluentForeverApp]

You're welcome! Happy to help!

[@vyaspranar2815]

My philosophy is when one masters the fundamental phonemes of a language and their formation as lexicons then ze can easily conquer that language. I already know 4 languages. Many times tried to practice French phonemes but failed (actually I didn't put much work- as I learn languages on my own on habitual basis and it has no direct material benefit in my life). But here when I come across yours I could able to grasp it without any effort / with very minimal energy. Thanks a lot. Really helped. Certainly, soon I will know French.

[@interpretertranslatorsanon5916]

You are just excellent ! Dony SANON, Linguist

[@yahyamadinahmadinah1010]

well done

[@danilobucker]

magnifique

[@ramzy-6566]

amazing video.

[@FluentForeverApp]

We're reall happy you found it useful!

[@francescosarzi]

5:25 the correct ipa symbol wouldn’t be ʀ?

[@BroxStudio]

It's nice to see someone knew the difference between [kʰ] and [k] xD But just one thing, [ɥ] is a semivowel and not a consonant. For the [ɲ] consonant you could take the example "canyon" [kʰænjən].

[@MarioBecerraC]

I hear the [ɥ] more as a vowel than a semivowel; actually, I had always thought it was a vowel until now. :(

[@stefanieanduri7880]

Yes! I teach it as the glided form of [y].

[@ThePassingVoid]

When i hear French people say oiseau I hear the last vowel as an [u] sound, is that normal?

[@andrewkeane9077]

Very helpful vids Gabe. I'm about to start the beta testing now, can't wait.

[@gladysma308]

5:55 review

[@HurrySun]

A question about the letter u: the u in musée and the u in nuage, are they pronounced the same? So far as I know, there's only one pronunciation for this letter in French, but why are the symbols different (y for the first u and the upside-down h for the second)?

[@colorzebra689]

They are both pronounced similarly. The difference is that the sound plays different roles in each word. In musée, /y/ acts as a standalone vowel. In nuage, /ɥ/ is a semivowel, a vowel-like sound that acts a consonant. This means that you pronounce the /ɥ/ faster. Hope this helps!

[@HurrySun]

@@colorzebra689 Ahhh this makes sense to me! So in "nuage", this "u" actually plays the role of "w", so it's basically "nwage" from the English point of view. It's like the Spanish word "suave" pronounced like "swave". Gotcha! Thanks a lot for your reply!

[@drunkviggo7263]

Legendary

[@mrspelly7150]

MAdness in the french spelling is right. It makes the language needlessly hard to learn.

[@strongindependentblackwoma1887]

nice ipa for french, i already know the ipa for english.

[@FluentForeverApp]

We are glad you found it helpful!

[@Nikthehermit]

5:31 he was the WAP blueprint

[@zad0m]

I didn’t know about k and kh

[@ptkk21]

1:55 it sounds the same, but it looks different.

[@learnenglishwithfaisalhame895]

DEAR ADMIN.WOULD YOU PLZ SUGGEST ME A DICTIONARY WITH IPA FRENCH SYMBOLS?

[@FluentForeverApp]

Hello there! You can find resources that will surely come in handy in this article: blog.fluent-forever.com/french-resources/

[@learnenglishwithfaisalhame895]

@@FluentForeverApp thsnks

[@laurabernaystudioforvoicetuiti]

Do you have a video that teaches step by step how a person who has 0 knowledge of French can use the IPA? For example I am teaching a group of students French, but one of them says: "But how do I know what IPA symbol to put if I have no idea how it sounds?" What does he/she do then? He/she will look at the word and then have to work out all the letters and their IPA symbols but the question is: how does one who has no knowledge of the language know that the 'eau' in 'oiseau' has the [o] IPA sound? And similarily how will they know that the 'oi' in 'oiseau' will be [wa]?? It seems like IPA is good if you already know what/how the words are pronounced. Your response would be much appreciated :)

[@FluentForeverApp]

This may help: easypronunciation.com/en/french-letters-pronunciation-ipa-chart There are also many videos on KZbin related to this - you can search French pronunciation and IPA. 🙂

[@ThePassingVoid]

Does the o in homme sound like the au in caught?

[@Emile.gorgonZola]

ThePassingVoid Kinda

[@skeptic781]

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open-mid_back_rounded_vowel

[@jeromej.1992]

You did get some pronunciation "wrong" but it wasn't in the highlighted consonant so it isn't that a big deal. "zoo" we pronunce it with the z sound then the same sound as in "au(x)" (as in "au marché") or "eau" (water). And tobogan. Both o are pronounced like the first. Thanks for this great vid.

[@ThePassingVoid]

It appears that it can be pronounced 2 different ways: en.wiktionary.org/wiki/zoo#French

[@tarungaur5961]

I started learning French from IPA Is it right or wrong?? Pls?

[@skeptic781]

It's good for pronunciation mate!

[@CapitalTeeth]

My vision shakes a little bit when i pronounce that upside down R. Anyone else get that too?

[@GHUANG-ot9qo]

2:55 loup l 3:28 ʃ (same as english) 3:35 ʒ (same)

[@theophonchana5025]

Uvular R

[@chenglao7400]

I appreciate this video, but it teaches way too fast!

[@hibalee8457]

It's more easier because i am an arab most sounds we actually use thank god 😭

[@wowdir9814]

same time

[@abrahamlinkin2414]

5:15 The reason most of us are here.

[@FluentForeverApp]

Yes, this pronunciation can be tricky!

[@julieryan8179]

Why is this video not included with my $300 + text book???

[@FluentForeverApp]

Hello Julie, We released these videos approximately eight years ago. But if you have any questions about what is included in your purchase, please get in touch with us at help.fluent-forever.com/hc/en-us/requests/new. We will gladly answer any questions you may have.

[@Emile.gorgonZola]

Note to self French L is apical not laminal ugh

[@yuanliangmeng9020]

French t d are dental. English t d are alveolar.

[@diegowilsonhuamanrodriguez492]

whats your mother tongue,Gabriel?

[@lepredator189]

English

[@memo6032]

Wait the English and the French "s" are the same "s"! I always thought they were different...

[@FluentForeverApp]

We're glad to have helped clarify that for you!

[@christipher4152]

way too fast bruhhh

[@lepetitchat123]

Sorry this turns me off the language even more...

[@harunosakura8007]

There is no such thing as Englishy words. Those n sounding words are pure French and was borrowed in English.

[@Emile.gorgonZola]

Haruno Sakura 黙れ

[@xFlRSTx]

according to wiktionary: Most terms suffixed with -ing are borrowed directly from English, but some are not (e.g., surbooking, relooking).